Mercat Tours was born in an Edinburgh classroom and we’ve been connecting visitors to Scotland’s capital and history since 1985. We've always been passionate about looking after our team, visitors, and local community - after all, it’s part of the Mercat Deal.
Over the past 37 years we’ve been fortunate to support our community in a number of ways including annual donations to local charities, sponsored runs, coffee mornings and building local partnerships.
Learning from the experience of the pandemic, in 2022 we launched a deeper, more meaningful way to support our local community - the 'Our Stories, Your City' project.
Our Stories, Your City for Schools
Stories are powerful, they make connections between places, people, and the past and have done for millennia. Stories are innately human, healing, and they are for everyone and we want to keep it that way.
That’s why through 'Our Stories, Your City' we’re using the power of stories to reconnect the disconnected.
Since launching in April 2022, visitors' donations to the 'Our Stories, Your City' project have funded 20 tours to five-star Edinburgh attractions for some of our community’s most vulnerable through the Grassmarket Community Project.
Building on this success we’re proud to announce that we’re extending 'Our Stories, Your City' down to our roots, to the very place where Mercat Tours began, in the classroom.
'Our Stories, Your City' tours will now be available to Edinburgh state schools, to support young people most impacted by the cost of living crisis.
Our project helps to keep Edinburgh’s history, stories, and five-star attractions accessible for all and ensures that young people can still enjoy school trips that bring what they learn in the classroom to life.
If you’d like to make a donation to 'Our Stories, Your City' you can do so here. Are you a local school? See the requirements and how to apply here.
Together, we are making a difference, proving tourism is a force for good.